Food-centered holidays like Thanksgiving can be challenging if you're watching what you eat, whether to lose weight or because of health concerns. For the last two Novembers I've had fun collecting Thanksgiving Recipes for dishes that were low-glycemic enough for the South Beach Diet and still tasty enough to be holiday fare. This year I'll be featuring low-glycemic Thanksgiving ideas again during November.

I'll be following my personal philosophy that it's okay to indulge in one or two *must have* foods for a holiday meal, if you make diet-friendly choices for most of the menu, so some of my Thanksgiving recipes will be "once in a while treats" for the South Beach Diet. Mostly though, I'll concentrate on recipes that follow South Beach recommendations for low glycemic foods, complex carbs, and limiting saturated fat.

(I'll be adding recipes to this list all through November, so check back if you're looking for menu ideas.)

Of course turkey is a perfect South Beach Diet food! For the last two years I've used Mom's Roast Turkey Recipe from my friend Elise's fabulous blog, Simply Recipes, rubbing the turkey with olive oil. Why reinvent the wheel when this recipe turns out perfect, flavorful, and moist turkey every time? I highly recommend Elise's mom's recipe.

If cooking a whole turkey is a bit much for you, here is how to cook a turkey breast in the crockpot, an experiment that was so successful it made me wonder why I haven't done this before! There are also instructions there for using the liquid from the turkey to make South Beach Diet friendly gravy.

Personally I think it's hard to make really good turkey gravy without some help in the flavor department. I've tried different types of turkey flavor base, but I'm convinced that Penzey's Turkey Soup Base has the best flavor. If you go to that post, you'll also find other tips for gravy.

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These sound SO good! Low-glycemic or not, I love Thanksgiving side dishes. I don't really even need the turkey! I can't wait to try your butternut squash recipe. I've also been wanting to try mashed cauliflower, maybe even with my new immersion blender!

Thanks for creating such a comprehensive site. I am planning a Thanksgiving menu for a friend on a low-glycemic diet and your site has given me several interesting jumping-off points. Keep up the good work!

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